The Amish Closet – Growing up Gay in a Closed Community

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What happens when a man discovers he’s gay but the culture he is raised in doesn’t address sexuality, much less homosexuality? James Schwartz, an LGBT poet and writer who grew up in an Amish community in Michigan, gives Sensa Nostra an inside look at what it’s like to grow up gay in a world where gender roles are strict and marriage between a man and woman is seen as an imperative.

The story of my life is a reflection of the global struggle for LGBT equality, a struggle that includes all members of society, including the Amish and Mennonites. Coming out for all LGBT Amish means being ostracized and excommunicated. Families must permanently cut us out of their lives and have no contact with us or they will get shunned.

As Amish follow the church, not society, they haven’t progressed on gay issues—they see homosexuality as lust, and that is that. Amish same-sex marriage is prohibited even in a marriage equality state. If an Amish youth comes out as gay, he or she will be quoted Scriptures (Leviticus is a classic read), shamed and pressured to renounce his or her ‘sin’. The ‘Amish closet’ is a dark place of hopelessness and bondage.

Some Amish communities are stricter than others. The Swartzentruber Amish branch being the most conservative. Our church district in southwest Michigan’s ‘river country’ was less strict than many but not progressive by any measure. Kerosene lamps, no electricity, clothes washed in an old-fashioned hand washer, and the farmhouse heated by wood burning and oil stoves.

All Amish are pressured into being formally baptized into the church by their late teens. Roughly eighty-five to ninety percent of Amish choose to stay. Those who leave the church usually return, unable to bear the separation from their families. The ones who do leave for good usually join other conservative Christian churches.

When you’re baptized and join the Amish community you are making a promise for life to be an obedient church member and live within the group guidelines. Therefore, when a member breaks the rules the community shuns them until they repent and are voted back. This is the Amish way of maintaining the purity of the church, believing they are a chosen people. The world is viewed as a wicked and sinful place to be feared—best to keep as separate as possible from it.

Rumspringa, the Pennsylvania Dutch word for running around, is a period in which teenagers are allowed to party and go socializing before they join the church. The rumpsringa in our district meant barn/garage parties, beer, blaring Country Western music, and a little dancing. Some Amish don’t have a rumspringa, or it only consists of supervised youth socials and singings. No binge drinking, drugs, or clubbing.

My brothers and sisters are much older than me and left the Amish community, married and already had their own families when I was still young, so I always felt like an only child. I was an effeminate Mama’s boy, and from an early age I knew I was different, but I didn’t understand how or why. I went through a brief period of devout faith when I was young. I read the Bible and prayed, prayed, prayed: morning and evening devotions, prayer before and after meals, at church. When an ex-Amish relative came for a visit I pointedly informed her of her fate in hellfire because she wore makeup and jewelry. Mom said so.

This instigated a teary argument between them while I smugly watched on. It was a horrible thing to do, but I was self-righteously evangelical about it all and defiantly unrepentant. I was jealous of her clanking bracelets, fancy English clothes and frosted blue eye shadow. Of course I secretly wanted to wear jewelry and frosted eye shadow too.

A boy’s boy I was not.

I minced when I walked and gushed when I talked. I postured my hand on a cocked hip. My world was my mom. I would hang on her dress hem at all times and rush home to her from school, merrily chattering away as she prepared dinner. Around the house I was her constant shadow.

I disliked getting up early for the long buggy rides to church. On church Sundays I sat with Mom at church and wouldn’t hear of sitting with the other boys. Men sat with men, the boys with boys, women with women and girls with girls. When an Amish boy teased me about it, I would sass him after church with a hand on my hip, calling him a few names like dumb cow.

I gravitated emotionally towards women, happy in their company. Men were another matter. I was disinterested in sports and talk of crops, hunting and farming. From an early age I was aware of a certain animosity from some male classmates, Amish men in the community, and even family. The animosity puzzled me, as I didn’t understand that my effeminate mannerisms were a giveaway. I simply didn’t understand sexuality, let alone homosexuality. Sex within the Amish community is a taboo subject, and there was certainly no Internet, television, or film.

I once spent the night with an Amish classmate that turned into a one-night stand. Once we were in bed it just happened instinctively. Neither of us got any sleep, and over the breakfast table I realized neither did the rest of the household. I was never invited back and he barely spoke to me afterwards.

Not knowing any openly gay people (Amish or otherwise) deepened the mystery of this experience. I had no sexual desire for women and with sex being a taboo subject I had no reference point. It all sort of came together for me when I began reading books with gay characters. Michael Cunningham’s early novel Flesh and Blood (1995) comes to mind, which I read after this one-night tryst with my classmate. It was around this time that I realized I was gay.

As I grew older I knew if I stayed Amish I would have to also stay in the closet and be pressured to marry a woman. The idea of marrying and living a lie offended my soul. I didn’t want to father children. I knew I would never be happy living the Amish life, if I was honest with myself. I also felt there was another world out there and I could never see it as evil.

Once I accepted my sexuality I wanted full gay liberation. I simply needed to muster the courage to step out, once and for all. I left the Amish officially in my late teens when I stopped going to church and eventually came out. My mother passed away when I was nine, so from that point it was just Dad and me. Every other Sunday he would make me go with him to church services and this was how it happened. After the 5 to 10 mile buggy ride to church I hopped off when we arrived and walked home. This happened two or three times until Dad realized I was serious about not going to church.

Dad was my hero: good-natured, always quick with a joke and smile. I was scared to come out to him, as I didn’t know what he would say. Despite his Amish ignorance on the subject of homosexuality, Dad was a model of Swiss tolerance.

“Dad I’m gay.”

His reply?

“You had better join the church and get a wife.”

“D-a-a-a-d!”

I don’t know if he truly understood, but he wasn’t going to kick me out or treat me badly. The Amish approved of me staying at the farm but not of my open homosexuality. Dad was upset that I didn’t join church, but he loved me unconditionally. I wasn’t kicked out of the community entirely either, just snubbed by its members. Some Amish are not so lucky.

I came out to everyone I knew by my early twenties. I started going to gay discos around this time, met my local LGBT community (family) and performed in drag shows. I transformed into a honey-blonde diva favoring little black dresses and Judy Garland numbers. I left home for several years, moving to Sarasota, Florida with a friend. I wanted my freedom, but in late 2004 Dad asked me to stay with him, as he was getting up there in years and wanted someone around the house. I didn’t mind, as I loved Dad and I could still hit the clubs on weekends.

I felt pure freedom when I left, the freedom to be myself and not worry about others judging me as a fallen sinner. I learned early on to consider my LGBT community family. When I walked into my first gay disco I was shaking. I was so nervous, afraid of getting heckled by a drag queen. I was, of course, immediately heckled by a drag queen, but it was mutual love at first sight. Many nights were spent in the company of drag queens, male dancers and other assorted nightlife characters, and I was welcomed with glittery open arms.

Going back to the Amish farm gave me the space to write about my nights out with cabaret legends. I got used to going from strobe lights back to kerosene lamplight. There was some culture shock, but overall, leaving the Amish and coming out was liberation. I was free to be myself and follow my heart.

Dialogue on LGBT issues is vital, as most Amish have little resource or support if they leave. I wanted to write about the gay Amish experience, be provocative, political and an artist. Not a farmer. Although I see farming as an important profession, it’s not my style. I love the struggle to be a writer and artist and having something meaningful to say.

The whole identity issue in the Amish community is difficult for us English to fathom. A woman is only a baby factory and cannot pursue gifts or talents unless it involves sewing, cooking, gardening. No college education. No frills, no nothing to set oneself apart. Men have little recourse either. Stuck with doing what the bishop tells them to do, not ever knowing they nor females what it is to drive a Camaro, or to wear a sharp suit, or have a night watching the sport of flavor on a flat screen above a gas fireplace. Though many Amish are loving caring people, it is a way of life fraught with incest, alcoholism, horse beating, puppy-milling, day in and day out drudgery that buries men early and makes women slaves.

Jason Suggs

“A woman is only a baby factory” Stereotypes of Amish are just as useless as gay stereotypes. Grow up. Learn before you speak.

jason

Have lived amongst them. Know all about them.

Jason Suggs

I do live among them right now. I live among an Amish colony of about 20,000 in my county. They, amazingly to some, are people just like the rest of us. They do not all think alike or act alike. And, they certainly dont all view women as mere baby factories. Your ideology is showing.

Justin Metcalfe

Not anymore. I was raised Amish. It was once a silent truth, but no more.

Justin Metcalfe

This is true. But times are a changing. With the advent of the Internet, more and more Amish youth are networking acoss America and finding freedom outside the household. Yes, what you say about the lives of women is true. But some are getting out. More we see a greater number of shunned teenaged youth, left homeless by their Bishops. But most fathers and mothers never loose that love for their children. These children find loving caring (ex-Amish & English) families. I have adopted a 13 year old gay teenager who was excommunicated when he was caught with another boy.
If you would like to help these children contact LGBTAmish.com for more information. God is Love. Get involved.

Katherine Manjibene Foster

As interesting as this is I started to question whether it was a true story when he started describing himself as a highly exaggerated gay stereotype. Yes, some gay people are actually like that, but many are just regular people. Gay men are just that—men. Not girls. And gay women are women. Not guys. People, and not just Amish people but all kinds of people, need to get used to the fact that there is more than one kind of man in the world, and also more than one way to be a woman.
That said, perhaps it might have been hard for this person to feel like a regular guy in the largely asexual environment where he was raised. Perhaps, in a more sexually open culture, it’s easier for the non-Amish (aka English) homosexuals to grow up like regular people who simply happen to enjoy the same sex. I realize of course that interfering too much with Amish culture would make the Amish not Amish anymore, but I do see this part of the culture as harmful.

Jason Suggs

The denial of exaggerated femininity among gay men and masculinity among lesbians is a product of the gay political need to be seen as the same. Accept differences and stop shutting out femboys and bulldykes.

Katherine Manjibene Foster

You have missed my point so completely I just don’t even know where to begin.

Jason Suggs

Your comment is a denial of common sense.

Jason Suggs

Katherine you can begin by stopping the oppression. Just stop it!

Katherine Manjibene Foster

Okay, I’ll start by not oppressing you. I’ll start by not denying your freedom to troll me in an attempt to mess with my head with a bunch of (cough) facts (cough) that you have obviously made up just so you’ll have something to argue about. But while I would fight fiercely for your right to post all this crap I would also strongly encourage you to join a support group for online bickering addicts. Or start one, if you can’t find one. Your arguments seem to suppose that I have never met any gay people. Ridiculous.

Jason Suggs

Gay activist warriors have given us hetero-normative gay heros on tv and in the movies and made jokes out of gay fems. Just look at Will and Grace for example. Will is a regular guy and Jack is a punchline. Your heteronormative bias is oppressive and vicious, cruel and dangerous to gay fems everywhere.

William Hellmann

Ignore him Katherine. Youre totally correct and honestly nutjobs like this guy are harmful to gays. Among other reasons, i couldnt really accept that i was gay till i was 22 because i thought id have to be fem and liberal and hateful to Christians and stuff. Luckily i realized its far from it. These masc haters disgust me cause they believe every gay needs to think and act the same and that is what hurts and damages young gay men. I’m gay, im conservative, im not Christian but i tolerate them, and thats the message the world needs to hear, not that all gays need to be some effeminate cookie cutter.

Amy Baker

I can confirm for you that this is a true story…. James went to my high school. He describes himself very honestly…. And he still is just a regular person, we all have our distinct personalities, quirks and eccentricities. At the end of the day, people are just people and all of society needs to accept that….

tikijazz

Wow I would love to take in an Amish youth (no ulterior motives).

Justin Metcalfe

Every year more than 15+ teenage Amish boys find themselves homeless in Pennsylvania. If an Amish student is shunned at 14+ years of age he is on the streets. If you really want to help contact LGBTAmish.com

Justin Metcalfe

I had much the same life, minus the the Amish father. Until age 6, my Amish grandparents raised me. My mother, was wisked away to relatives in Indiana where no one–and I mean no one–knew of my existance. When I was 6 my life began to change. My T-cells were down and my white blood cells were in the millions. I had lieukemia. It was the Pennsylvania court system that changed my life and found my biological father, step-mother, half-sister, and half-brother. After a bone marrow transplant I got well again and met my extended family that I love to this day. Staying on the farm was a bit hard for a gay 11-year-old. No one wanted to play doctor. But, on Cocoa Beach, there were plenty of blonde boys who were a bit randy for experimentation and real friendship through the remaining years of high school. My adolescence on Merritt Island was the happiest years of my life, despite being gay. No one much cared. Justin and I went to the same schools and remained a couple since 7th grade. On June 20, 1975, I lost my virginity to Justin (imagine that) after the showing of Jaws. It was fear that brought us together and loneliness and passion that comsumated our love. We are married and still together with three sons, one in college. This book allowed me to open up to all my remaining family after all these years. Thank you.
In the image below is our 1976 photo. I am on the right. GO MUSTANGS!!!https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9d44de6e447a0c2b6ccc27daeb7b1841c024b711fdd573cc0eab27c4affc205.png

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